1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an improvement of a method of searching a desired tone color from a plurality of tone colors in an electronic musical instrument which is capable of reproducing one or more tone colors from among tone colors of a plurality of kinds.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Among electronic musical instruments presently in practical use, there are many electronic musical instruments which are capable of reproducing not less than one hundred tones colors (voices) . Each voice is provided with a title referred to as a voice number and a voice name, and every performer can designate a desired voice by searching a voice list by the number or the name of the voice through inputting the number or the name from a ten-key board or the like.
However, in the case where the number of voices exceed one hundred, there have been such problems that all the numbers or names cannot be stored and much time is consumed in searching the list. Furthermore, when the desired voice name is found in a list or the like, it has been impossible to perceive what sort of tone color the voice has unless it is reproduced.
In order to give solution to the above-mentioned problems, there has been proposed a system in which a plurality of voice patterns are classified in hierarchies by the features of the voices, and a desired tone color is found out by searching the hierarchy from a higher level to a lower level, for example, from wind instruments to woodwind instruments, further to a saxophone (lowest level). However, when many tone colors are found out at the lowest level in the searching, there is no other manners for distinguish each of the lowest objects (voices), therefore, resulting in that only actual tone generation of all the lowest objects can be possible to distinguish each of the voices.
Otherwise, there can be a method of making the desired voice searchable by prestoring character string data (of such as a clear tone) for each voice and searching the character string data. However, the method has a drawback that it is not capable of a search operation limiting the degree of a feature of each voice. In concrete, there has been a drawback that a "more clear sound" is fatally classified into the same category as that of a "less clear sound".